Things continue to get worse for 60 Minutes' already retracted Benghazi report and its discredited "eyewitness" Dylan Davies. Gawker's J.K. Trotter reports that CBS News and Simon & Shuster may have failed to properly vet significant "discrepancies" in Davies' accounts of his military background.

60 Minutes' October 27, 2013, segment about the 2012 terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya, collapsed after it was revealed that Davies had given conflicting accounts of his actions that night. CBS News eventually pulled the segment and released a "journalistic review" finding that the report was "deficient in several respects" and "did not sufficiently vet Davies' account of his own actions and whereabouts that night." Correspondent Lara Logan and producer Max McClellan were put on a leave of absence.

Two days after the 60 Minutes report aired, Simon & Schuster imprint Threshold Editions -- which is owned by CBS Corporation, a blatant conflict of interest -- released The Embassy House under the Davies pseudonym Morgan Jones. The book was pulled from shelves shortly after CBS retracted its segment, but a number of inconsistencies in the book have raised questions about whether Davies' publishers and CBS News adequately vetted Davies before promoting his dubious story.

Gawker's J.K. Trotter has uncovered further discrepancies in Davies' account, this time related to claims about his military service. Trotter notes that while Simon & Schuster highlight the rank of "Sergeant Morgan Jones," "there is zero evidence Davies obtained the rank of sergeant in the British Army." Furthermore, "Davies and his editors seem to disagree about the length of his military service." During the book Davies claims to have served for fourteen years, but the book's jacket and website both say he served for only twelve -- "So either Davies is lying about his enlistment date, or Threshold Editions is lying about their own author."

Trotter also revealed that no one at Threshold Editions or 60 Minutes appears to have verified Davies' claim that he worked on the security detail of U.S. Major General James T. Conway. According to Conway, no one at either organization contacted him to verify Davies' account, despite Conway's importance to Davies' personal narrative:

At several points in the book, Davies recounts leading a security detail as a private contractor in Afghanistan for the (now retired) commandant of the United States Marine Corps, Major General James T. Conway.

[...]

But when contacted by Gawker, Conway couldn't verify Davies' story. "[His] name is vaguely familiar but [I] cannot put a face with it," he wrote in an email. "That is not to say his claim is not true."

"You are the first person to contact me about any of this," Conway told Gawker.

This is doubly notable because his book's marketing apparatus--including, most of all, 60 Minutes--depended on Davies' image as a dedicated, experienced, well-regarded security professional. "He's been helping to keep U.S. diplomats and military leaders safe for the last decade," is how Logan introduced him. His proximity to Conway earned a special mention in Davies' jacket biography.

Fact-checking is essentially non-existent in the book publishing world, meaning there are few safe guards in place to prevent such failure. Threshold Editions did not respond to Media Matters' previous requests for comment regarding an explanation of its procedures. Threshold representatives declined to comment to Gawker.

But 60 Minutes should have vetted Davies more thoroughly before featuring him in their segment, and their flagrant disregard for basic journalistic standards and ethics helped earned CBS News the distinction as Media Matters'2013 Misinformer of the Year.

Gawker and Trotter, on the other hand, seem to be doing the investigative research into Davies' background that CBS News should have done before ever putting him on air.

James Taranto Clueless About Access To Reproductive Health

Wall Street Journal editorial board member James Taranto falsely claimed that women have full control over reproduction and are choosing to have "illegitimate" children who grow up without fathers -- furthering his history of sexist and inaccurate attacks on women's rights and reproductive freedom.

In his January 6 Best of the Web Today column, Taranto examined an article about studies which claim that boys who grow up in households without fathers are likelier to have discipline problems in school than boys who grow up in families with both a male and female parent. Taranto argued that this was a problem rooted in "female careerism" and birth control. He claimed that the growing number of children born to unmarried women -- what he termed "widespread illegitimacy" -- was a product of women having full control over reproduction thanks to the introduction of the pill and abortion rights, and thus "the vast majority of children who are growing up without fathers are doing so in large part because of their mothers' choices" (emphasis added):

Under the legal regime that has prevailed for more than four decades, any woman who gives birth out of wedlock does so because she chooses to do so. To assign responsibility is not necessarily to assign blame: One may hold the view, for example, that illegitimate childbirth is morally preferable to abortion, or that widespread illegitimacy is not as bad for society as the decline in fertility that would occur, all else being equal, if sex outside marriage never produced a child.

Nonetheless, the vast majority of children who are growing up without fathers are doing so in large part because of their mothers' choices. In our column last month, we half-facetiously raised "the converse lament that young females are insufficiently interested in 'becoming reliable wives and mothers.' " Let us now raise it half-seriously. It is trivially true that an unmarried woman who bears a child is not a reliable wife. If Hymowitz is correct about the baneful effects of fatherlessness on boys, such a woman also is not a reliable mother, at least to her sons.

Regardless of what kind of household children are raised in, the fact is women have increasingly little control over their reproductive choices, as their rights are under unprecedented threat. A new Guttmacher Institute report stated that in 2013 alone there were 70 different anti-choice restrictions adopted throughout the states. This severely reduced women's reproductive health options and in many cases shut down health clinics in huge areas of the country, blocking women's access to necessary and safe procedures. Indeed, more abortion restrictions were enacted in the past three years than in the entire previous decade.

Taranto's sexism and misinformed attacks on women's reproductive freedom are a regular feature at the Journal, where he has previously argued that a "war on men" began with contemporary feminism in the 1960s, when women dared "to be equal to men" and wanted "sexual freedom." Below, Media Matters has compiled a selection of some of his worst comments:

Fox News hyped a photo from the Internet indicating that, at an unknown location, a copy of Al Gore's 2006 book An Inconvenient Truth is selling for $1. According to Amazon.com, numerous booksellers are currently selling the books of various Fox News hosts for that figure or less.

While reading headlines on Fox & Friends, "news anchor" Heather Nauert reported that the price of the former vice president's book had "melted to just one dollar," according to the price tag on a "picture that is now circulating on Twitter":

Well, talk about an inconvenient truth for former vice president Al Gore. There is a picture that is now circulating on Twitter, you can see this right here, and it shows the price of his book on the so-called "global warming crisis" -- well, it's melted to just one dollar. It's also labeled a super buy. Super buy. No word on exactly where this picture was taken, but on Amazon.com the book sells for about $12. It's a buck twenty to buy a used one.

There is nothing unusual about books being marked down. Indeed, Amazon reveals even better deals on books from Nauert's own colleagues. For example, a new, hardcover edition of Sean Hannity's 2004 book Let Freedom Ring will only cost you one cent from booksellers through the Amazon marketplace.

So will a new hardcover copy of The Mr. & Mrs. Happy Handbook, Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy's "laugh-out-loud perspective on love, marriage, and family" from 2009. In fact, a bookseller in Minnesota will sell you a signed first edition of this guide to marital happiness for just $0.99 plus shipping.

Greta Van Susteren's My Turn At The Bully Pulpit is also available for less than a dollar new at Amazon booksellers. Bill O'Reilly's 2010 book Pinheads and Patriots is available new in hardcover for slightly more than Gore's at $2.70, but a used copy will cost you just $0.01.

Brian Kilmeade's 2007 sports book It's How You Play The Game is available new for just $2.85, but a "collectible" paperback edition is available for 99 cents. Booksellers are also promoting Kilmeade's latest book, George Washington's Secret Six, for $11.00 new -- a nearly 60 percent mark down for a book that came out just last November.

Fox News is convinced that the recent increase in federal disability benefits must be suspicious -- but they're ignoring the historic rise of disabling conditions, which results in 1 in 5 Americans with disabilities.

During a January 3 Fox & Friends segment about "Who's Ruining the Economy," co-host Steve Doocy asked why more Americans were receiving Social Security disability benefits, wondering "are there simply more people who are becoming disabled, or are more people just simply becoming desperate?"

Guest and Fox Business host Stuart Varney replied, "I think it's the latter. A lot of people are taking the disability option," suggesting that millions of Americans were faking their disabilities in order to receive benefits while unemployed.

Varney is simply wrong. As medical advancements allow us to live longer lives, they are also making us more likely to live with disabilities. The Global Burden of Disease Study 2010, produced over five years by hundreds of researchers around the world, revealed that on average the world population lives longer and is more likely to survive lethal diseases than ever before. As The Washington Postreported, this means that "people are living with conditions that don't kill them but that affect their health":

"These are things like mental disorders, substance abuse, musculoskeletal pain, vision loss, hearing loss . . . that cause a huge amount of disability but not a whole lot of death," said Murray, who heads the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

[...]

People are living longer lives, but the time they are gaining isn't entirely time with good health. For every year of life expectancy added since 1990, about 91 / 2 months is time in good health. The rest is time in a diminished state -- in pain, immobility, mental incapacity or medical support such as dialysis. For people who survive to age 50, the added time is "discounted" even further. For every added year they get, only seven months are healthy.

"Progress in reducing disability just hasn't kept pace with progress in reducing mortality," said Joshua A. Salomon of the Harvard School of Public Health, one of the project leaders.

Furthermore, as Media Matters has repeatedly and extensively documented, despite Fox's never-ending campaign to demonize Social Security disability, it is not an "option" that out-of-work individuals can rely on if they do not have severe disabilities. The eligibility criteria are stringent, with waiting periods that are typically months long, and more than half of all applicants are denied. There is also no evidence that people receiving disability benefits are hurting the economy.

The rise of disabling medical conditions is a serious issue for millions of Americans, and the ability of the federal disability programs to help some of those individuals survive when they are unable to work could be at risk if Congress fails to reallocate the necessary funds for the programs, which they have routinely done before. But Fox would rather push baseless and deceptive fears about these necessary federal programs than accurately report on the medical conditions millions of Americans live with every day.

Men are under threat. Despite the fact that women still make less than men do, are hugely underrepresented in media, and face so much sexism on a daily basis that Republicans actually have to undergo training to learn how to talk to women in non-offensive ways, conservative media would like you to know that it's really men who have it tough.

The "War on Men" is waged on multiple fronts, from elementary school classrooms to the workplace to men's own marriages. Nowhere is safe. So to help the besieged men out there, here is a list of all the things conservative media said were examples of the "War on Men" in 2013.

1.Kids Don't Play "Tag" Anymore.

In September, National Review Online hosted a debate which asked "Is there a war on women? Or is it a war on men?" An example of the suffering of men, according to the panel, was that "schools are replacing boys' favorite game, 'tag,' with a more female-friendly alternative called 'circle of friends.'" As Alice Munro noted in the New Republic, this isn't true.

MARY KISSEL: [W]hen did this war on men begin? Can you pinpoint a starting point?

TARANTO: Well, it all goes back to the beginning of contemporary feminism in the early '60s. You know, women wanted to be equal to men, they wanted to be able to do all the sort of professional things including the military that men could do, and --

KISSEL: Was there anything wrong with that, though, James? I mean, that sounds --

TARANTO: Well, that's too long to go into now, the question of what's wrong with that, but in addition they wanted sexual freedom. Well what is female sexual freedom? It means, for this woman, that she had the freedom to get drunk, and to get in the backseat of the car with this guy. There was another woman who accused him, he was acquitted in this case, of sexual assault. This so-called assault happened in his bedroom, to which she voluntarily accompanied him, even the jury said that was consensual.

3. Obamacare.

According to conservative media, the Affordable Care Act's mandate that insurance companies can no longer discriminate is the same as "sticking it to men" and waging a "war on bros." In reality, the law makes sure insurance companies can't force women to pay more for health care just because they are women.

4. "Feminized" Schools Have Rules, Standards.

The "War on Men" starts "as a war on boys," according to NRO's Helen Smith, which manifests when schools "take away recess" and adopt "a feminized approach to schools to the point where it is mainly for those who conform, sit still, and like to follow rules."

5. Sometimes, Men Are Accused Of Sexual Harassment.

Wall Street Journal editor James Taranto fights the "War on Men" on a regular basis. In June, he dismissed the epidemic of sexual assault in the military, claiming that efforts to address the enormous problem contributed to the "war on men" and were an "effort to criminalize male sexuality." Taranto conveniently ignored the fact that many victims of sexual assault in the military are also male, and that most men probably don't agree that "male sexuality" necessarily includes having sex with drunken women in cars.

6. Commercials And Sitcoms Make Men Look Stupid.

In 2012, FoxNews.com columnist Suzanne Venker claimed that a factor in the "War on Men" was that "Women aren't women anymore," because now they have college degrees and have sex outside of marriage. In 2013, she took this probing analysis further, saying that men -- who are "second class citizens" -- are under threat because Title IX forbids discrimination in college sports and because of "sit-coms and commercials that portray dad as an idiot."

7. Women Work Full-Time Jobs.

In December, Venker uncovered yet another layer in the war on men: women these days are "financially independent," and despite the "simply irrefutable" fact that they "prefer part-time work," many continue to insist on working full-time jobs, harming men's ability to fulfil their natural inclination to be primary breadwinner.

8. Women Would Like To Make The Same Amount Of Money Men Do.

At FoxNews.com, Carrie Lukas argued that President Obama's nominee to the Office of Personnel Management was the new "general" in the "war on men's pay," because she was tasked with attempting to close the gender wage gap in government salaries. Lukas baselessly claimed that this would result in men being paid less money in order to make up the difference -- literally the opposite of what was intended, which was to pay women more.

9. "Obama's America."

Finally, WSJ editor James Taranto blamed "Obama's America" for waging the "War on Men" with the sexual harassment regulations under Title IX, which he claimed unfairly police men's sexuality.

Fox News hosts used meaningless hand gestures to mock the interpreter at Nelson Mandela's memorial service who reportedly did not use standard sign language, even after another news organization apologized for a similar sight gag.

As NPR reported, there is "outrage among many in the deaf community" after it was revealed that the interpreter who was assigned to translate speeches for the hearing impaired during the December 10 ceremony did not use standard American or South African sign language. Wilma Newhoudt, a Deaf member of South Africa's parliament and vice president of the World Federation of the Deaf, tweeted that the interpreter was using meaningless hand gestures and suggested he be removed from the stage. The interpreter defended his work before claiming that suffered a "schizophrenic episode" during the memorial. An investigation is pending.

Fox News reported the story with Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade making meaningless hand gestures and waving his arms around while his co-hosts laughed.

Later in the show, America's Newsroom co-host Martha MacCallum meaninglessly moved her hands around while attempting to sign "I love you."

NBC's Today show apologized for similarly mocking the incident on December 11, after a producer mimed fake sign language during the broadcast. Minutes after the gag aired, a representative for the show tweeted "We aired a joke in our 9:00 hour that was offensive. We apologize to our viewers."

FoxNews.com reported on the Today show segment, noting that many in the Deaf community were offended.

Right-wing media launched a series of sexist attacks on Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt after she took a photo with President Obama during the Nelson Mandela memorial service, calling her "Denmark Babe," "Danish Pastry," and referring to her as a sexual object.

In their evening coverage of the December 10 Nelson Mandela memorial service, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC focused a majority of segments on President Obama's handshake with Cuban President Raul Castro and on a "selfie" Obama took with world leaders during the event rather than on the service itself or Mandela's legacy.

A New York Post editorial dismissed the decrepit and dangerous condition of homeless shelters in New York City, claiming a New York Times exposé of the realities of poverty for homeless children demonstrated how "generous" the city had been.

On December 8, the New York Times published the first in a five-part series on poverty in the city titled "Invisible Child," which featured the story of one of the city's 22,000 homeless children whose family currently resides at the Auburn Family Residence, a homeless shelter. The Times described the shelter as "a place where mold creeps up walls and roaches swarm, where feces and vomit plug communal toilets, where sexual predators have roamed and small children stand guard for their single mothers outside filthy showers."

The Post editorial board responded to the story on December 9 by dismissing the family's problems, claiming that because they lived in a 540 square ft. shelter, they "aren't really homeless at all," and concluded that the city of New York had been "too generous" to provide the family with any shelter, even one that featured "mice and reports of sexual assaults and other crimes":

Begin with the family at the center of this story. The mother, father and eight kids aren't really homeless at all. True, they live in housing meant for "homeless families." But their 540-square-foot unit gives them a solid roof over their heads, in addition to city-provided meals and services.

[...]

Yes, the family's housing has problems, including mice and reports of sexual assaults and other crimes. But the Times and Elliott, like much of the liberal establishment, seem to think it's the city's job to provide comfortable lives to outrageously irresponsible parents. In this case, that's a couple with a long history of drug problems and difficulty holding jobs.

Something's wrong with that picture.

If the city is at fault here, it might well be for having been too generous -- providing so much that neither the father nor mother seems much inclined to provide for their kids. That would be a story worth reading.

Politico turned to the American Enterprise's Institute's Danielle Pletka, a former aide to Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) with a history of smearing Democratic appointees, as one of the "smart foreign policy thinkers in both parties" cited to judge Hillary Clinton's diplomatic legacy as Secretary of State.

Politico Magazine's December 8 profile, which is now making the rounds of the pundit class, claimed that Republicans can easily dismiss Clinton's foreign policy achievements -- and question her viability as a candidate for President -- by following Pletka's lead and attempting to smear her with the deaths of four Americans during the 2012 attacks in Benghazi:

What does that Republican take look like? For sure, there will be a focus on Benghazi, where the GOP has questioned whether Clinton and other administration officials were activist enough--and truthful enough--about responding to the attack in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012, that led to the deaths of the U.S. ambassador and three other American personnel; a case summed up by the American Enterprise's Institute's Danielle Pletka as "unwillingness to take risks, unwillingness to lead, willingness to stab a lot of people in the back. And dead people." Pletka's broader view of Clinton's record is a harsher version of what I hear from many Democrats: "the Washington consensus," Pletka says, "is that she was enormously ineffective ... [though] no one was quite sure whether she was ineffective because she wanted to avoid controversy or because she wasn't trusted by the president to do anything."

Pletka has a long history as an ideological partisan dating back to her time as an aide to Helms' Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1992 to 2001. Despite his history of racism and extreme conservatism, Pletka defended his "conviction" and "old fashioned" values following his death in 2008.

As vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI, Pletka is a top advocate for neoconservative policies. She has backed military strikes in Iran while dismissing the news that the U.S. reached a historic deal with Iran over their nuclear program in exchange for reducing the sanctions. Military experts have warned that such an action could have dire consequences. Pletka has also defended torture, saying that while she's "not a big fan," she still thinks it's necessary in wartime.

Pletka was also part of the conservative campaign to smear Chuck Hagel as an anti-Semite prior to his nomination as Secretary of Defense, despite the fact that Hagel's positions were mainstream and in no way anti-Israel. Pletka devoted a USA Today opinion piece and an AEI blog headlined "Chuck Hagel, anti-Semite?" to the subject and concluded that while she couldn't tell one way or the other, there were still "reasonable questions" to be asked about Hagel's "view of the Jews."

Pletka's baseless insinuation that Benghazi somehow undermined Hillary Clinton's work as Secretary of State builds on a year-long campaign by conservative activists and politicians to try to use the tragic attacks to disqualify her from a future presidential run. Such attacks are based on a multitude of myths and falsehoods.

HannahGroch-Begley
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Hannah Groch-Begley joined Media Matters in August 2012 and is a Research Fellow specializing in media depictions of disability and women's rights. She holds a Bachelor's degree in History from Vassar College.